It is conventional in the golf club industry to fabricate wood club heads with a ball-impacting face having a series of aligned grooves formed therein. "Wood" club heads can be made of wood, or more commonly today, of metal. As used herein, "wood" clubs refer to the class of golf clubs including the driver, typically known as the number one wood, and the fairway woods, typically the number three, four, five and seven woods. The ball-impacting face of the number one wood typically is inclined from the vertical in the range of 7 to 13 degrees, while the faces of the fairway woods have a greater inclination, e.g., 13-17 degrees for the number three wood, 20 degrees or so for the number four wood, 23 degrees for the number five wood, and 27 degrees for the number seven wood. This invention is an improvement in the golf driver or number one wood clubs.
FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional wood club head 20 having a ball-impacting face 22 with a pattern of horizontal, aligned grooves 24 formed therein. The grooves or other patterned indentations, however, tend to impart spin to the golf ball, and can therefore contribute to slicing or hooking the ball, or to causing the ball to lift or drop appreciably. The spin imparted to the ball can thus adversely affect the accuracy and the distance of a player's shot.
Golf play often occurs in wet conditions, due to early morning dew on the course grass, rain, drizzle, irrigation or the like. Water which adheres to the ball-impacting face of the golf club can reduce the energy transfer between the face and the ball, and therefore affect the play.